contracting vs receding

contracting

noun
  • The act of something that contracts or shrinks; contraction. 

  • Work done on a contract basis. 

adj
  • Getting smaller; drawing itself together into a smaller area. 

receding

noun
  • The action of something that recedes. 

  • A recessed part. 

adj
  • Going or moving back or further away from a previous position; gradually diminishing. 

  • That recedes. 

How often have the words contracting and receding occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )